The air in the Fourth Layer was thick with the stench of vaporized blood and ozone. The aftermath of the battle against the Third and Fifth Apostles left the landscape scarred, the ground vitrified into jagged glass from the sheer magnitude of the combined SSS-Rank attacks.
Morgane Sylvine Obeline hurried across the blackened earth, her white robes fluttering, glowing with the divine light of Hestia. She dropped to her knees beside the exhausted duo.
She raised her staff, her lips moving in a rapid, silent prayer. A wave of emerald and gold light washed over Nicholas and Damien.
The healing process was both miraculous and grotesque. For Nicholas, the stump of his severed right arm bubbled with raw, concentrated mana. Bone extruded first, forming a skeletal frame in seconds, followed rapidly by wrapping muscle, weaving veins, and finally, a fresh layer of pale skin. For Damien, the deep, purple-black bruises and torn ligaments in his right arm knitted back together, the agonizing strain of his [Black Death] trait being scrubbed away by the Saintess's grace.
Both men gasped as the sudden influx of vitality shocked their exhausted nervous systems.
"Thanks, Morgane," Nicholas grunted, flexing his newly generated fingers. He picked up Mjolnir, feeling the familiar weight settle into a hand that hadn't existed a minute ago.
"Yeah. Thanks," Damien muttered, rolling his shoulder. The phantom aches remained, but the structural damage was gone.
After ensuring they were stable, Nicholas stood up, towering over the crater they had created. He turned to the gathering crowd of surviving soldiers, WHA members, and a panicked General Lucy McClane. He took a deep breath and explained everything—the ambush, the horrifying speed of the Demoness, the monstrous transformation of the Elf, and the desperate, combined strike that had finally erased the two World Ender beings from existence.
"And that's what happened," Nicholas said, finishing his report. He sighed, looking at the pale, terrified faces of the audience. Many of them were standing with their mouths hanging open, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"You killed a what?!" Morgane shrieked. It wasn't the regal, composed voice of the World's Number One Hunter; it was a sound of pure shock. It wasn't that she doubted their strength, but the sheer impossibility of what they had just accomplished defied all established dungeon logic.
Damien just sighed, dusting off his tactical pants. He looked at the gaping crowd with visible annoyance. "Yeah, we killed World Ender Beings while nearly being killed ourselves. So what? You should be glad we killed those two freaks off. That's minus two massive problems for the vanguard."
"No! That's not how it works!" Morgane cried out, her composure completely shattering. She pressed her hands against her temples, her face pale. "If you killed two Apostles, you didn't solve a problem! You just gave their Pope a chance to get back the power he originally bestowed upon them!"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Nicholas's jaw tightened. "We had no choice, Morgane! If we didn't do that, we would have been killed. They were SSS-Rank anomalies fighting with killing intent. We were defending our lives!"
"Also," Damien stepped forward, his obsidian eyes flashing with a dangerous, volatile anger, "you didn't even tell us that the Pope would get stronger as we killed his Apostles?! What kind of garbage intelligence is that?!"
Morgane flinched under Damien's glare. She looked down at the scorched ground, her hands trembling slightly on her staff.
"Sigh... I know. I know it's my mistake that I didn't put it in the briefing file," Morgane admitted, her voice dropping to a whisper. "But... the Goddess Hestia was belated in telling me. She only just sent the revelation that the Apostles act as external mana-vessels for the Pope. They should not be killed, because their deaths automatically return their soul-fragments and power to him."
Morgane sighed again, the weight of the world seemingly pressing down on her slender shoulders. The problem was catastrophic. She knew these two had no choice in the heat of battle, but the math was undeniable: if they killed any more Apostles, it would give the Pope a one hundred percent guaranteed chance to successfully revive the Demon God.
"It's your fault, then," Damien stated coldly, offering no sympathy. "Your God is slow, and your planning is flawed."
Before Morgane could apologize again, Damien shifted his gaze. "Also, I forgot to ask. Did you guys get lost? I mean, when we walked through the gate into the Fourth Layer, we didn't see you following us. Nicholas and I were alone for hours. What happened?"
A calm, melodic voice answered before Morgane could.
"Yeah, we got lost a bit."
From the edge of the crater, Gyeum Gayeol emerged from the shadows. Her pristine combat uniform was completely devoid of dirt or blood. She walked with a terrifying, serene grace.
"It must have been the Pope's doing," Gayeol explained, stopping a few paces away. "Spatial manipulation. The gate's coordinates were scrambled the moment you two stepped through. We were transferred to a different quadrant, a labyrinth of illusions, but we were still technically on the Fourth Layer."
With a casual flick of her wrist, Gayeol tossed a massive, severed head onto the ground between them. It rolled to a stop at Damien's boots. It belonged to an SSS-Rank Void Behemoth, its face frozen in an expression of absolute terror.
"And don't worry," Gayeol continued, looking directly at Damien. "We have no casualties on our side. I cleared the path."
Damien raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed for a fraction of a second. He looked down at the massive head. As he inspected the gruesome trophy, he noticed something. The monster had one remaining eye intact—a deep, swirling, luminescent purple.
It was the exact same shade as the Geraniums. The exact same color as Melissa's favorite aura manifestation.
Without a word, Damien crouched down. He drew his combat knife, jammed it into the monster's socket, and brutally gouged the purple eye out.
-SQUELCH.
"Here we go," Damien muttered, wiping the excess black blood off the optic nerve. He casually slipped the squishy, baseball-sized eye into a specialized, mana-preserving pouch on his belt.
"Really?" Nicholas grimaced, his nose wrinkling in disgust. He was shocked that Damien would do something so macabre so casually in front of everyone.
Damien merely shrugged, unbothered by the stares of horror from the nearby soldiers. "Let's go now. We still need to kill a World Ender, right? No point standing around crying over spilled mana."
Nicholas sighed, a weary but fond smile touching his lips. Morgane touched her temples again, feeling a headache that no healing magic could cure, while General Lucy and the rest of the troops simply nodded, too exhausted to question the psycho with the knife.
"Let's get this done. Here." Damien offered his hand to help pull Nicholas up from his resting crouch on a boulder.
Nicholas grabbed it. "Thanks."
"You're welcome, old monkey."
***
The SSS+ Dungeon: "Target Zero"Depth: Layer 5 - The Abyssal Canopy
Passing through the gate to the Fifth Layer was unlike the previous descents. There was no vertigo, no sudden shift in gravity. It was like walking through a curtain of cool water.
When they emerged on the other side, the entire army collectively gasped.
It was night in this layer.
But it wasn't the oppressive, claustrophobic darkness of a cavern. Above them stretched a sky so vast and impossibly beautiful it defied all logic. Millions of stars glittered like scattered diamonds on black velvet. Massive, sweeping auroras of emerald, violet, and crimson danced slowly across the horizon, casting a soft, ethereal glow over the landscape.
The ground was a smooth, endless expanse of dark, polished stone that reflected the starlight, making it feel as though they were walking on the surface of a mirror floating in outer space.
"For a nightmarish layer, as the file said... it's like we are in a fantasy world, huh," Damien noted, raising his eyebrow as he scanned the impossibly peaceful environment.
"I agree," Nicholas replied, his heavy hammer resting by his side. He looked up, his seasoned eyes searching for the trap hidden within the beauty. "It's too quiet."
"Woah," Gayeol murmured, her usual stoic facade slipping as she gazed upward, her oceanic blue eyes reflecting the brilliant auroras.
After conducting a rapid, wide-area scan and confirming there were absolutely no monsters or members of the Demon God Cult in the immediate vicinity, Morgane instructed the army to make camp. They needed to rest. Human endurance had limits, and marching into the final boss room with exhausted troops was suicide.
Within an hour, the camp was established. Temporary mana-barriers were erected, and magical bonfires were lit. The atmosphere shifted dramatically. The soldiers and the lower-ranked WHA members, high on the adrenaline of surviving four layers of hell, began to let their guard down. They passed around canteens of water that felt like wine, singing low, melancholic military cadences around the fire to keep the creeping dread at bay.
Morgane secluded herself in her command tent, deep in a trance. She was desperately communicating with her Constellation, trying to update their tactical files based on the disastrous revelation about the Pope's power accumulation.
Nicholas, citing his old age and the immense mana drain of regrowing an arm, was dead asleep in his tent, his snores rumbling like a dormant volcano.
Away from the noise of the camp, sitting on a smooth outcropping of obsidian at the edge of the barrier, was Damien. He sat with his legs dangling over a drop-off, staring intently at the purple eye he had gouged earlier, turning it over and over in his hands.
He heard soft, deliberate footsteps approaching from behind.
"It's really beautiful."
It was Gayeol. She stood a few feet away, her hands clasped respectfully in front of her.
Damien didn't jump, but he hurriedly shoved the purple eye back into his tactical pouch, hiding his macabre fixation. He didn't look at her.
"Which one?" Damien asked, his voice flat.
"The skies, of course," Gayeol replied, stepping up to stand beside him. She looked up at the swirling cosmic ballet. "It's like it's telling us to relax. To breathe. Even in the depths of hell, the universe creates art."
"Hmm," Damien grunted, finally looking up. "For me, it's really not that magnificent. Though I could understand your perspective, I guess. It's a nice illusion."
"Really? You don't like looking at the skies?" Gayeol asked, surprised. To her, the stars were a reminder of the vastness of the universe, a comforting thought that their earthly struggles were small.
"Nope," Damien said, leaning back on his hands. "Though, I loved stargazing, I guess. A long time ago. When I was a child, Dad used to take me out to the roof of our house. He was always teaching me how to identify which constellation I was looking at."
A rare, almost imperceptible softness entered Damien's voice.
"Haha... he even told me I was Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, while he was Ursa Major, the Great Bear. He would point at the stars, showing me how they were aligned, how they painted pictures in the dark. He taught me that Constellations were just... stars. Giant balls of gas burning billions of miles away, united only by human imagination."
Damien's smile faded, replaced by a bitter sneer. He looked over at Gayeol, his black, obsidian eyes meeting her oceanic blue ones.
"You know, I miss that. I miss the time when 'Constellations' were just stars that were aligned in the sky... not arrogant gods calling themselves by those names, playing games with our lives for their own sick entertainment."
Gayeol held his gaze. She didn't look away from the darkness in his eyes. A faint blush dusted her porcelain cheeks, not out of romantic attraction, but from the raw, unfiltered intimacy of his confession.
Damien stared at her face for a long moment.
"You have beautiful eyes," Damien said quietly.
Gayeol's breath hitched.
"Such a waste you're a Hunter," he added, the venom returning to his tone, instantly freezing the brief warmth between them.
Gayeol stepped closer, her expression hardening with determination. "Do you hate Hunters that much? I mean... I already know everything. Master Nicholas told me everything about your past. Your parents. The Twin Dungeon. Melissa."
Damien's posture went rigid. He stood up slowly, towering over her.
"Really?" Damien hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "That old man told you why I hate Hunters so much? Good. Then there's no explanation needed. We have nothing to talk about."
He dusted off his pants and turned his back on her.
"Then you should understand why I am like this. Why I act like an asshole to your kind," Damien threw over his shoulder, his voice cold and final. He waved a dismissive hand in the air. "I'll go first then. Goodbye—"
"Wait!"
Gayeol lunged forward. She grabbed Damien's hand, her grip surprisingly strong, desperate.
Damien stopped. He didn't pull away immediately, but his muscles tensed.
"Please," Gayeol pleaded, her melodic voice cracking with emotion. "I know it's our fault that Melissa died. I know the Association failed you. I know the world failed you. But please... just listen to me. Just once."
Damien sighed. A long, bone-deep exhalation. He slowly turned his head to look at her, his eyes devoid of anything resembling hope.
"Seven minutes," Damien stated, glancing at his watch. "I'll give you exactly seven minutes. Speak."
Gayeol let out a shaky breath, releasing his hand but refusing to step back. She looked up at him, baring her soul.
"I understand your pain, Damien," Gayeol began, her voice trembling but resolute. "I really do. I am not speaking to you from an ivory tower. I lost the one I love too, because of them. I lost my sister in Busan to the cowardice of a Guild. I grew up hating the Hunters just as fiercely as you do. I wanted to burn their world down."
She took a step closer, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
"But... after surviving, after forcing myself to join the Hunters and becoming a student of Nicholas, I realized something. I realized that there are still good people in this world. There are still people worth protecting. People who bleed and cry and sacrifice everything so others don't have to suffer our pain."
Gayeol reached out again, her fingers gently wrapping around Damien's calloused hand.
"There is still a reason to live. That's why, please... I'm begging you. Hesitate. Have doubts about your decision. I know you plan to die in this dungeon. I can see it in the way you fight. But it's not too late, Damien. You, and all of us... we could still live in this world. We can change it."
Her grip tightened. "We could still find the meaning and reason to live. That's why... please reconsider throwing your life away."
Damien stood perfectly still. He let her hold his hand. He looked down at her hopeful, tear-streaked face. His empty, obsidian eyes didn't waver. He didn't blink. He just stared at her, an impenetrable fortress of grief.
After a long, agonizing minute of silence, Damien sighed.
"It's too late for me," Damien spoke, his voice incredibly soft, yet incredibly heavy. "I already have so much regret piled up in my life that it suffocates me every time I close my eyes. I have no reason to live for."
He gently, but firmly, pried his hand out of her grasp.
"And also... if you think that rehearsed, empathetic speech could help me reconsider? I'm sorry. I'm already dead certain on the choice I made years ago. I am just waiting for the executioner to swing the axe."
Gayeol looked at her empty hands, a profound sorrow washing over her.
"Though, I gotta thank you for your efforts to try and save me," Damien added, a touch of genuine melancholy in his tone. "But it's all useless. This world snatched everything from me. And—"
Damien looked away from her, gazing up at the false stars. He traced the lines of the sky, finding the formations his father had taught him. He saw Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. In his mind's eye, the two constellations looked like they were hugging each other in the vast, cold void.
"My reasons to live..." Damien whispered, his voice cracking for the first time. "Melissa... I thought she was supposed to be my last reason to live. She was my anchor. But she was snatched from me too. The universe doesn't want me to have an anchor. It wants me to drown."
He looked back at Gayeol and offered a bitter, heartbreaking smile.
"That's why this closure of yours... it won't work on me. I'm sorry, Gayeol. I really am."
Damien turned around. He adjusted the straps of his vest, his posture shifting back from a broken man to a soldier preparing for war.
"You should go back to your tent. It's past your bedtime," Damien said dismissively.
He walked away, stepping past the boundary of the camp and heading toward the direction of no return—the path leading to the final stronghold.
Gayeol stood there alone under the starlight. She watched his broad shoulders fade into the shadows, realizing that some wounds were too deep for words to reach.
'I'm sorry, Master,' Gayeol thought, a single tear finally escaping and tracing a path down her cheek. 'It seems I failed to save him. He is already a ghost.'
***
The Final Descent: Sector Zero.The Abyssal Castle.
The march resumed hours later. The army moved in silence, the artificial night doing nothing to conceal the horrifying majesty of their final destination.
"We finally arrived," Morgane stated, her voice tight.
Before them stood a structure that defied human architecture. It was a massive, sprawling castle carved entirely from black, jagged obsidian. It pierced the starry sky like a cluster of jagged daggers. Its walls pulsed with thick veins of violet mana, and a moat of liquid shadow surrounded the perimeter.
"Is that the Demon God Cult's HQ?" Nicholas asked, whistling low in appreciation. "That's too big for a simple headquarters. It's like we are battling an entire subterranean Empire."
"For once, I agree with you, old monkey," Damien said, pulling the charging handle on his customized Glock, confirming a round was chambered. "It's like we're volunteering for a death wish coming here. But hey, at least we have the opportunity to wipe them out entirely all at once, right?"
"I dunno about wiping them out easily, though I'm ready if that's what you're asking," Nicholas replied, summoning Mjolnir. Lightning instantly began to arc across his golden armor, the air smelling of ozone.
"Then let's go inside already," General Lucy McClane ordered, her voice echoing with military authority. She tapped her comms earpiece. "All units, check your gear. We have Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C drawn up, anyway. Right, Morgane?"
"Yes. We should go inside now. May the gods have mercy on us, because they won't," Morgane said.
She raised her staff high. "[Aegis of the Hearth!][Blessing of the Vanguard!]"
A massive shockwave of golden, divine light exploded from Morgane. It washed over the entire army. The soldiers felt their fatigue vanish, their muscles bulging with enhanced strength, their reflexes sharpened to superhuman levels. It was the ultimate mass-buff, a spell that drained Morgane visibly, but it was necessary.
The army marched forward, crossing the massive drawbridge that had mysteriously been left lowered for them.
As they breached the gates and entered the colossal courtyard of the castle, they stopped.
Waiting for them, arranged in perfect, terrifying military formation, was the Army of the Demon God Cult. Tens of thousands of high-tier monsters—Lycans, Dark Elves, Void Knights, and corrupted elementals.
Standing at the forefront, hovering slightly above the ground, were the remaining generals of the apocalypse.
The First Apostle, a hulking behemoth clad in dark, spiked armor holding a battleaxe the size of a tank. The Second Apostle, a massive, bipedal Werewolf whose fur crackled with crimson electricity. And the Fourth Apostle, the ram-horned scholar, floating cross-legged on a tome of dark magic.
"We were waiting for you to arrive, Middle Realm Humans," the Fourth Apostle spoke. His voice was magnified, echoing off the obsidian walls with a mocking politeness.
He stroked his chin, looking at the glowing army of soldiers and Hunters. "And it seems you are too much prepared. So much divine energy. Tell me, is there a chance for peace? Could we negotiate a surrender?" The Fourth Apostle asked in a thick, sarcastic tone, a sneer plastered on his face.
"There's no chance for that," Gyeum Gayeol stepped forward, breaking the formation. Her eyes were cold, all the sorrow from earlier replaced by absolute, surgical focus. "And you should already know why we're here. We are here to exterminate you."
She pointed the tip of her katana directly at the Fourth Apostle's face.
"Really?" The Fourth Apostle chuckled, amused by the bravado. He lazily raised his hand and moved a single finger forward, the universal sign to execute.
"Kill them. And no one should be spared. Let their blood water the roots of our Goddess."
The Second Apostle, the colossal Werewolf, didn't wait. He roared, a sound that shattered the stone tiles beneath his feet, and launched himself forward like a furry missile directly at Gayeol.
"I'm going to eat you! You fucking human whore!" The Werewolf screamed, his massive claws glowing with red mana, aiming to rip Gayeol to shreds in a single swipe.
Gayeol didn't blink. She didn't even shift her stance.
-CLANG!
Sparks flew. The Werewolf's attack was stopped dead in its tracks. Gayeol had drawn her blade so fast it looked as if it hadn't moved, catching the massive claws on the flat of her katana.
"넌 약해." (You are weak.)
Gayeol's voice was a whisper, but it carried perfectly.
"What—" The Werewolf's crimson eyes widened in absolute shock. He couldn't push her back an inch. The physical strength of this tiny human was eclipsing his own.
Before the monster could react, before his brain could process the danger, his view suddenly turned upside down. The world spun wildly.
"무모하게 공격하면 안 돼." (You shouldn't attack recklessly.)
Gayeol slowly, methodically sheathed her sword. The click of the guard hitting the scabbard echoed loudly.
It was only then that the Second Apostle realized his head had been separated from his body.
-THUD.
The massive werewolf's body collapsed, spraying blood across the courtyard. Gayeol had effortlessly decapitated an SSS-Rank monster in a single, fluid motion without even breaking a sweat.
The First Apostle, the armored behemoth, raised an eyebrow beneath his helm. He gripped his battleaxe, a low growl rumbling in his chest. He took a step forward, intending to crush Gayeol for the insult.
A hand shot out and stopped him. It was the Fourth Apostle.
"Why?" The First Apostle demanded, his voice like grinding tectonic plates.
"Patience. Let our soldiers handle them first," the Fourth Apostle commanded smoothly, adjusting his robes. "Make them exhausted. Bleed their mana dry. Drain the Saintess's stamina. And then we will attack. That is what His Holiness the Pope instructed us to do. We don't risk our lives on fresh prey."
"Fine." The First Apostle rolled his eyes beneath his helm. He crossed his massive arms and leaned back, watching the battlefield.
He watched Damien and Nicholas charge into the fray. He watched them effortlessly slaughtering their elite soldiers by the dozens, while Morgane stood in the back, constantly refreshing their buffs and weaving defensive blessings.
"Are these the so-called 'warriors' that the Pope warned us about?" The First Apostle grumbled. "The biggest threats to the resurrection of our Goddess? The old man with the hammer is strong, but the rest... they seem weak to me."
The Fourth Apostle didn't reply. He just watched intently, his eyes darting across the battlefield, running tactical simulations, reading the humans' moves like an open book.
The courtyard had devolved into absolute pandemonium.
-CLANG!
-BOOM!
-SQUELCH!
-CLANG!
Damien and Nicholas were a two-man army, acting as the impenetrable bulwark protecting the US Army's vanguard.
Damien was a blur of violence. He danced through the lines of Dark Elves and Void Knights, his dagger slicing throats and hamstringing joints, while his Glock barked a constant, lethal rhythm. Every bullet was infused with his [Black Death] mana, turning standard ammunition into armor-piercing artillery rounds that exploded inside the monsters' bodies.
Nicholas was a force of nature. He waded into the thickest part of the horde, swinging Mjolnir in massive, sweeping arcs. Every strike generated shockwaves of lightning that turned dozens of monsters into ash simultaneously.
But there were just too many.
"Hah... hah... hah..." Damien panted, sliding under a scythe swing and blowing the attacker's kneecaps out. "Damnit! There's no end to them! It's like fighting the ocean!"
"I agree!" Nicholas roared, smashing a Lycan into a bloody pulp. He was huffing with exhaustion, sweat pouring down his face beneath his golden helm. "I've already killed a thousand of them myself! Even with Morgane's blessings keeping our stamina up, the sheer volume is dragging us down. We are struggling to hold the line!"
Damien vaulted off the back of a dying troll and landed near the military staging point. He shouted into his comms.
"General! How's the frontline?!" Damien yelled to Lucy.
General Lucy McClane was fifty yards back, directing a squad of engineers amidst a hail of enemy arrows.
"We are still busy planting the charges!" Lucy screamed back, firing her assault rifle to cover her men. "The obsidian structure is too dense! We need to set the Mana-Breach bombs exactly on the fault lines! And our soldiers... we are taking too many casualties! The buffs can't stop a decapitation!"
"That's an SSS-Class Level army for you!" Nicholas bellowed, throwing his hammer. It flew through the air, crushing a row of armored knights before magically returning to his hand.
"This plan better goddamn work!" Damien shouted, firing three rapid shots into the skull of a charging berserker.
"It will!" Lucy shouted back, wiping blood from her cheek. "After we plant the bombs completely as planned, we will blow the main gates to the inner sanctum! Then we can finally bypass this meat shield, go inside that massive castle, kill the Pope, and destroy the Demon God's statue before she unseals!"
"Fine!" Damien yelled, holstering his empty gun and drawing a second combat knife. He activated his [Stealth Specialist], using it not to hide, but to make his movements unpredictable and erratic, weaving through the enemy ranks like a phantom.
"We will keep the horde busy! You and the engineers keep planting those bombs!" Damien ordered.
-BANG! BANG! BANG! Damien shot three more rounds from his newly reloaded Glock, taking down a trio of spellcasters aiming at the engineers.
"Copy that! Two minutes until detonation!" Lucy confirmed.
***
The High Ground.
While Damien and Nicholas fought a grueling war of attrition, Gayeol was a different story.
She was fighting on the left flank, fending off a massive regiment of the Cult's army effortlessly. She wasn't sweating. She wasn't breathing heavily. She moved like a dancer, her katana leaving a trail of blue light that severed limbs and weapons with impossible precision.
The Fourth Apostle watched her from his floating tome, raising an eyebrow in genuine surprise.
"Fascinating," the Fourth Apostle murmured, taking mental notes. "For a young SSS-Rank Hunter, she is exceptionally efficient. She is butchering our finest troops without breaking a sweat, while the Titan and the Assassin are already showing signs of severe fatigue."
He stroked his chin, analyzing the mana streams in the air.
"Hmm. It's not just her skill. That woman in the back who wields the staff—Morgane. She is funneling a disproportionate amount of her divine blessings directly to the Sword Empress, keeping her in peak condition while rationing it for the others."
"What are you murmuring about, Fourth?" The First Apostle asked, crossing his arms, clearly irritated by the lack of action.
"Nothing," the Fourth Apostle replied calmly. "Just something I realized. I have reached a conclusion regarding the trajectory of this war."
"Really? Would we win?!" The First Apostle grunted eagerly.
"No," the Fourth Apostle stated matter-of-factly. "It would be a stalemate. If we engage now, we would lose an unacceptable portion of our elite forces. But simultaneously, they would lose too much as well. They would likely lose their vanguard, and most importantly, their Saintess would burn herself out trying to keep them alive."
"A stalemate? Really?"
"Yes," the Fourth nodded. "However, His Holiness the Pope has already calculated this. He told us he would handle the Saintess and the Vanguard personally when the time comes. Our only job here was to let our fodder die to make those three human champions exhausted. We are succeeding."
"I see," the First Apostle sighed, his massive shoulders slumping. "Though I'm already bored enough. I want to fight already! I want to crush that Titan's skull!" He grumbled and pouted like a petulant child denied a toy.
"You should not rush," the Fourth scolded sharply. "Look what happened to the Second. He let his bloodlust blind him, and that girl took his head before he could blink. We must not underestimate them, First. They are cornered animals."
"Fine," the First Apostle spat. "I'm just bored, you know? And also... aren't we here specifically to kill those two human males? The Titan Nicholas and the red-haired rat Damien? As revenge for what they did to the Third and the Fifth?"
"Yes, we are," the Fourth smiled thinly. "But it's not the time—"
-KABOOOOOOOOMMM!!
A massive, earth-shattering explosion rocked the courtyard. A blinding flash of white light erupted from the base of the massive obsidian doors leading into the inner castle. The shockwave knocked hundreds of monsters and soldiers flat on their backs.
The First Apostle raised his eyebrows, completely unbothered by the shockwave.
The Fourth Apostle just looked back over his shoulder at the smoking, gaping hole where the impenetrable doors used to be.
"Ah," the Fourth Apostle said, a slow, sinister smile creeping across his face. "So the Pope was right. They were using the battle as a distraction. They were planting breaching bombs to get inside as their main plan."
"What?!" The First Apostle roared, his eyes blazing with sudden fury. "The Pope knew they were doing that?! Goddamnit, he should have told me to go down there and kill those motherfuckers before they blew the gate!"
The Fourth Apostle simply shrugged, his floating tome carrying him gently toward the entrance of the castle. He waved his hand dismissively.
"The Pope's designs are beyond our comprehension. He wants them inside. Let's go inside already, First. We have intruders to take care of."
The First Apostle grabbed his massive battleaxe and rolled his right shoulder, the joints cracking like thunder.
"Fine. I want to go to sleep anyways. The boredom is killing me," the First Apostle grunted, marching toward the smoke-filled breach.
***
The Breach.
The dust settled, revealing a massive, gaping wound in the side of the Abyssal Castle.
"It worked! It seems they successfully infiltrated the Castle walls!" Morgane shouted over the din of battle, her voice ringing with desperate hope. She pointed her staff toward the opening. "We should go inside already! The outer perimeter is breaking!"
"Huff... haah... huff..."
Damien was practically bent double, resting his hands on his knees. He was so exhausted his vision was swimming with black spots. He had fired his gun until the barrel warped, and his knife was chipped beyond repair.
Beside him, Nicholas wasn't doing much better. The Titan was leaning heavily on Mjolnir, his golden armor dented and scored with hundreds of claw marks.
Morgane rushed forward. She didn't have the mana for a mass buff anymore, so she placed her hands directly on Damien and Nicholas. A concentrated burst of healing green light washed over them, forcing their muscles to knit and their lungs to expand.
"There," Morgane gasped, looking pale and dangerously fatigued herself. "You two should be ready to go fight again. The inner sanctum awaits."
"Yeah... thanks, Morgane," Nicholas replied, his voice rough. He rolled his massive arms, feeling the stiffness leave his joints, and tightened his grip on the leather-wrapped handle of Mjolnir.
Damien stood up straight, his breathing evening out. He looked at Nicholas.
"Hey, old man!" Damien called out, casually stepping over a dying Lycan. He drove his combat knife directly through the monster's eye socket into its brain to silence its whimpering.
-STAB!
"How many armies of this cult did you kill in that wave?" Damien asked, pulling his knife free with a sickening squelch.
Nicholas wiped sweat from his brow. "About ten thousand. Give or take a few dozen. How about you?"
"Seven thousand," Damien smirked, wiping the blade on his pants. "Seems you beat me. Must be the area-of-effect on that shiny hammer of yours."
"We have no time for a kill-count contest!" Morgane shouted, her panic rising as she saw the remaining cult army beginning to regroup and close in on their rear. She frantically waved her hands toward the gaping hole in the castle. "We should go inside already! Move!"
Nicholas just shrugged at Damien, a silent acknowledgment of the absurdity of their situation. Damien sighed, a heavy, tired sound.
"Fine," Nicholas and Damien said in unison.
They turned to head toward the breach, ready to face the Pope.
But before Damien could take a step inside the dark corridors of the castle, a hand reached out and grabbed his wrist.
It was Gayeol. Her grip was tight, her eyes pleading. She looked like she wanted to say something, to offer one last word of comfort, or perhaps to ask him to stay behind her.
Damien didn't look at her face. He didn't want to see the pity.
With a swift, violent jerk, Damien forcefully ripped his hand out of Gayeol's grip. The sudden rejection left her stumbling forward slightly.
He didn't look back.
'Sigh,' Damien thought to himself, his heart hardening into an impenetrable stone as he walked into the pitch-black maw of the castle. 'That's exactly why I don't want to talk to women like her. They make you hope. And hope gets you killed.'
He racked the slide of his gun, stepping into the abyss.